


Produce NCT

by BambiLee



Category: NCT (Band), Produce 101 (TV), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Competition, Gen, Performance, Trainee, i almost want to apologise for creating this, it's basically if NCT entered a survival show, mark is essentially a one man nu'est, no one asked for this, survival show, taeil is totally not inspired by jaehwan, taeyong is somi or xukun, the dreamies are the RBW boys in their little cute outfits., the show is a combination of produce 101 and idol producer, winwin and kun are basically jungjung and justin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BambiLee/pseuds/BambiLee
Summary: The newest trend in Korea is endless survival shows, ruthless competitions which form incredibly popular but inevitably temporary groups who will take the industry by storm before fading away. It is the easiest way for smaller companies to get their trainees to the peak of fame without even debuting a group with their own money.When MNet announce a new survival show to debut a nine member boy group entirely voted for by the public, eighteen boys in particular talk with their companies and enter the show despite nerves or lack of confidence holding them back.There are only nine debut positions waiting, and one hundred and one boys attempting to claim them.





	Produce NCT

**Author's Note:**

> I jokingly mentioned that I might write this on Twitter and someone DMed me and actually wanted it and honestly, I want it too so this happened. I feel like I should apologise.
> 
> Quick explanation - none of the boys know each other before the show unless they are from the same company. Much like Produce 101 and Idol Producer, some boys who enter are entering at a much higher level of fame, or from a better company, or entering without being able to speak the language. Relationships can develop through each challenge and elimination, so if you want something to happen then hit me up and I'll see what I can do <3
> 
> (italics is indicating that the boys are speaking Chinese, I couldn't think of another way to do it shfbshf)

The pyramid was intimidating.

From the stage, it was the only thing that Doyoung could focus on as he looked out. Each chair was meticulously placed so that they were equal, a scattering of cameras hidden between them to pick up the reactions of anyone that would sit there. The chairs near the top were cushioned, high up a staircase and emblazoned with the numbers: one, two, three.

“We can’t sit up there,” murmured Jaehyun, pushing against the label on his chest to make sure it was stuck there as well as it could be. “Don’t tell me you’re looking at the top seats.”

“It’s the best place to sit though,” answered Doyoung. They were the first two in, with a hundred and one empty chairs staring back at them, taunting them. When Doyoung took a step forward, Jaehyun held his arm to catch him.

“You can’t sit up there without me,” he smirked. “You expect me to sit in second place? Come on, let’s sit together.”

“Can we at least sit in the upper half?”

“Of course.”

The stairs were not as steep as they looked, but the height and cameras were intimidating enough once Doyoung and Jaehyun reached a certain height. They settled on sitting in forty-one and forty-two, numbers that did not have a particular meaning to them but two that were in front of a camera. With a smile and a high five, they sat and waited for the rest of the trainees to wander in.

Without any order, boys would walk onto the stage in a daze. Brief introductions were given, before crowds stumbled towards the stairs and found seats seemingly as far away from Jaehyun and Doyoung as possible. With each new boy, their faces and the positions they had predicted themselves were projected onto a screen so that judgement – or friendships – could be made before the auditions even officially began.

“Star Shine Entertainment,” muttered Jaehyun, reading the cursive logo that appeared on the screen in front of them. “I haven’t heard of them before.”

“Can’t be a big company,” shrugged Doyoung as the logo faded to a single smiling face and a single ‘1st’ written underneath it. “He’s aiming high. Cute smile, though.”

The smile was even brighter in person, the boy walking in with a big grin and bigger confidence. He gravitated towards the centre of the stage like he belonged there and no one in the room could argue that he did not fill it. “Hello!” he announced, smile never faltering as he bowed to the few trainees scattered amongst the chairs. “I’m Star Shine’s trainee Yuta.”

“Yuta?” repeated Doyoung, watching as the boy climbed the stairs and took a chair placed at sixteenth. It was beneath his prediction of first, and Doyoung took it as his confidence finally crumbling.

“Stage name,” suggested Jaehyun, trying to justify the strange name of the newcomer. “Or foreigner, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

Yuta could see almost everything from where he sat, the highest chair that anyone had dared to sit so far. He perched nervously on his own hands whilst watching the other boys, murmuring the lines to his audition song under his breath as he watched staff members readjust lights, cameras and prepare for the next entrance of trainees. He envied the boys who had come as a group. He could see them talking, joking amongst themselves and serving as a constant reminder that he had no one to do that with.

With a sigh, Yuta distracted himself by attempting to read the logo that had been show on the screen once his own face had faded. It was practically unreadable, geometric shapes forming letters that not many people could decipher.

“Indebt?” tried Doyoung, but Jaehyun shook his head.

“Industry,” he corrected. “The Industry Label. Never heard of them either.”

“More companies than I thought.”

The two boys from The Industry Label seemed like opposites. They shared a bright smile tinged with nerves, but the similarities ended there. Whilst one was tall, the other was far shorter and had to take twice the number of steps to keep up. The taller walked slower when he realised he was being left alone.

“Hello,” they smiled, standing beside each other and scanning the crowd in front of them. They spoke in complete unison, to the point of almost seeming scary. “We’re Johnny and Ten from The Industry Label, please look after us!”

There was a brief polite applause in response to their introduction, before Ten was practically pulling the taller boy up the staircase towards the top seats. “We have to sit on the top seat,” he laughed, ignoring the looks people gave them as they ran past. “At least once, come on.”

They could not both fit, but Johnny was willing to sit first and pull a protesting Ten onto his lap. “It’s comfy!” he laughed, wrapping his arms around Ten’s waist to hold the struggling boy there.

“It’s got to be comfier than your lap,” argued Ten. He eventually freed himself, standing up and leaving Johnny in the first-place chair and sitting himself down in the chair one step beneath. “This one is comfy too. We can sit here, right?”

“I’m not staying in first,” argued Johnny. “I’ll take third. It’s still high enough.”

Johnny moved, pulling a face for the camera that turned to follow him. It stayed still when he sat down.

Yuta turned to look at them, almost angry that two boys had chosen to sit higher than him. However, when Ten saw him looking and gave him a smile, he flashed one back without hesitation. They spoke without words, a grin shared with a tilt of their heads and the slightest wave from Ten which the cameras would pick up on and extend into a friendship on screen.

“Ten,” interrupted Johnny, staring at the screen rather than his label mate’s budding relationship. “Look, the logo. Begin Music Label. Why does that sound familiar?”

Ten looked away from Yuta to the logo that Johnny had pointed out, a sleek and modern typography giving way to the faces of three young boys who they could already hear shouting to each other from within the entrance corridor. “That’s why,” answered Ten, pointing to the face on the far left. “Mark Lee!”

“I head he was entering but I thought it was just a rumour. I didn’t think his company would actually send him.”

“It’s not fair if he already has experience.”

The entrance of the small boy and his two other label mates was met by an excited chattering through the boys that rippled throughout the room. Yuta did not join in, listening to the talking around him and understanding the words but not knowing the context.

“Who’s Mark Lee?” he asked, turning to the boy next to him in the hope of an answer. “Why is everyone so excited?”

“He was on a show already,” was the answer. “It was a rap competition, he came second! No one knew he was going to be an idol trainee.”

Yuta nodded in acknowledgement, but he turned his attention back to the three boys who were introducing themselves over the continuous chatting. Mark received the loudest round of applause, but there was a confidence in the glances of the two other boys from his label – Haechan and Jeno, according to the labels on their chest – that Yuta did not want to underestimate them.

Mark, Haechan and Jeno all sat surprisingly low. To make sure they could sit together, the three young boys chose to sit in the very lowest ranks at the bottom of the pyramid. There was a camera in front of them, and that was all they cared about.

“So many people recognised you,” murmured Haechan, nudging his friend with his elbow.

“They’re not the ones who are voting,” retorted Mark, but his smile showed that it was good-natured.

The entrance of trainees appeared to slow down as production staff ran around, fixing technical problems before they became too evident and would hinder the rest of the filming. “I’m hungry,” complained Jaehyun, resting his head on Doyoung’s shoulder.

“The auditions haven’t even started yet,” answered Doyoung. The technical issues appeared to be fixed, and another logo appeared on the screen. Doyoung had stopped paying attention. “We’re going to be here for hours.”

“These things can go on till early morning, right?” laughed Jaehyun. “It’ll be fine. There can’t many boys left now. And the staff will want to go home as soon as they can, right?”

Another logo flashed up onto the screen. Yuta tilted his head to try and make sense of the elaborate Korean writing until he realised that it was not Korean at all.

“What the hell does that say?” questioned Ten, leaning over to push Johnny’s shoulder in case he was not paying attention. “Is that Korean?”

“Chinese,” answered Johnny. “I think. That would make them a Chinese company though, surely. Unless they have Korean trainees.”

The headshots of the two boys that were shown after the logo suggested that Johnny had been right with his first guess. “At least I’m not the only one with a stage name,” murmured Ten. “Unless that kid was actually called Winwin by his parents.”

“I doubt it.”

The two new boys entered without leaving each other’s side. They moved together, seeming nervous, with one boy taking the lead and the other following behind. “ _Kun,”_ whined the younger boy, hoping the microphone that they had been wired to would not pick him up. He wanted to hold Kun’s hand without seeming obvious to the boys that were watching. “ _Kun, there’s too many people.”_

 _“There will be a lot more by the end,”_ warned Kun. “ _Come on, it’ll be fine.”_

_“I don’t want to perform in front of them.”_

_“We’ll do well, I promise. Where did you want to sit?”_

Sicheng pouted, shrugging his shoulders and wordlessly passing the decision onto Kun. He also allowed Kun to introduce them to the watching crowd, trying not to seem too impressed at the string of Korean words that seamlessly flowed from Kun’s mouth. The older boy had been in Korea for a matter of months longer and although it was not much, it was enough for him to be the designated speaker between the two foreign boys.

Keeping his gaze fixed on the floor, Sicheng allowed Kun to pull him to a seat right on the floor. He tried not to look at the numbers; sitting at a chair labelled ‘96’ made him feel as if he had failed before he had even begun.

“ _You have to speak if you want the audience to fall in love with you,”_ tried Kun. A couple of trainees sitting around them watched them, listening to the foreign tongue flowing from Kun’s mouth. “ _People will like you, you know? You don’t have to say much. You know, all our chances here are based on screen time.”_

 _“I don’t want to speak yet,”_ complained Sicheng. “ _I’ll get screen time, I promise.”_

Kun wanted to talk more, but he was drowned out by the laughter that echoed down the tunnel as four more faces from a new company were announced on the screens.

“They look young,” commented Jeno, starring at the four faces. “They’re babies.”

In real life, they looked even younger. They all moved together holding hands, laughing and smiling as if there was no element of competition in what they were entering at all. It was like they were entering a part. They even took their time in arranging themselves in the centre, smiling widely and bowing in unison despite their young age.

“Hello!” introduced one boy, the one who seemed the eldest. “We’re the trainees from Dream Music Industry – Renjun!”

“Jaemin!”

“Chenle”

“And Jisung!”

“Please take care of us!”

Each boy introduced themselves separately, before asking to be looked after in an adorable unison that melted the hearts of the boys watching them.

“They have to be the youngest team,” murmured Jaehyun. “There might be someone younger later but, overall…”

“I feel so old,” whined Doyoung. “Why are we here?”

Sicheng nudged Kun, trying to get the attention of the older boy. “ _Chenle’s a trainee here?”_ he asked, hiding his mouth in case the boys in front of them could lip read even in Chinese. “ _He was a singer, wasn’t he?”_

 _“He must have been scouted,”_ suggested Kun. “ _Or maybe he joined a company. I never expected him to be here.”_

_“Did you ever meet him?”_

_“No. Did you?”_

_“Once.”_

Chenle, and the other four boys, did not pay any attention to the two boys talking at the front as they attempted to find four seats that were still together. There was a row near the top, and the younger boys seemed uneasy climbing so high up the stairs even though they had all written high ranks as their predictions. They sat together, but there was something that unsettle them.

“They look so pure,” laughed Johnny. “Ten, don’t go near them. You’ll corrupt them.”

“They won’t be so pure once they work out they’ll be fighting each other just for the sheer chance of making it past each elimination.”

Johnny was quiet for a moment. “I worry about you sometimes, Ten.”

Mark tried to make sense of the company that had appeared on the screen, tilting his head and looking it from as many different angles as possible. “That’s not even a company, is it?” he asked. “Independent trainees?”

“Must be the people without a company,” answered Haechan. “That’s allowed sometimes, if they’ve done other things.”

“I wonder who it is,” added Jeno, but his question was answered by a shorter boy who walked out onto the stage with a guitar slung over his shoulder. His hair had been permed, curly and giving him a youthful look although the way he carried himself and positioned himself on stage suggested he came with confidence.

“Hello,” he announced, bowing with a smile and trying to hide any nerves that may have been exposed through his voice. “I’m Taeil!”

He clapped for himself, and then laughed at the awkwardness as he tried to recover. There were a few people in the audience who joined in with him, either from sympathy or because they had been seduced by his sweet smile.

“Moon Taeil?” asked Doyoung, watching as the newcomer climbed up to a seat that was free in the top nine chairs. “He’s sung for dramas, hasn’t he?”

“I think he was on a television show too,” added Jaehyun. “He’s good.”

“With him and Mark Lee, we haven’t got a chance.”

Taeil sat behind Yuta, the Japanese boy turning around to see his new neighbour to rest his guitar up against the arm of the chair and take a seat on the cushion of a seat marked with ‘9’. Taeil caught him staring and flashed him a smile. “I’m so nervous,” he added, laughing again to try and ease some of the awkwardness.

“It’s okay,” reassured Yuta. “I’m nervous too. I think everyone is.”

Taeil looked around to get a generic overlook of who had already arrived. “There’s so many people here already,” he shrugged. “There can’t be many left, can there?”

Yuta counted, finding the empty seats even though they were nearly hidden. “The top chair is empty. I think, there’s two more? Only three more boys?”

“I wonder who they are.”

Taeil’s question was answered by two loud laughs that echoed from the corridor where everyone had entered. “Lucas! called a voice, and one tall boy sauntered onto the stage following by a giggling smaller boy who clung to his side as soon as he caught up with him. “Lucas, you weren’t supposed to leave me!”

“I came to look for seats,” argued Lucas, scanning the crowd with a smile as he tried to find somewhere for them. “There’s nowhere left.”

“You could go sit at the top,” nudged Jungwoo, but Lucas shook his head.

“I don’t want to sit up there.”

“You’re normally so confident.”

“People have to like me, Jungwoo.”

Lucas’ smile was contagious, and Jungwoo returned it. “There’s two seats together,” he added. “We can sit there so we don’t have to split up.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

Jungwoo and Lucas had to pick their way through people who were already sitting down to find the chairs that they had find, but they were happy enough to sit together further down the ranking rather than have one of them at the centre of attention sitting at the top of the pyramid. Their energetic entrance was overshadowed within a matter of seconds.

“There’s no way,” muttered Doyoung, starring up at the logo that had just appeared on the screen. “They wouldn’t send anyone.”

“It’s got to be a joke,” argued Ten, looking at Johnny in disbelief. “Hidden camera.”

Johnny nodded. “JHS wouldn’t send anyone to this.”

“JHS?” asked Kun, repeating it several times. “ _Isn’t that a huge company? They’re sending a trainee here?”_

 _“Why would they do that?”_ pouted Sicheng. “ _We can’t compete against JHS.”_

Taeyong could hear the confused mutterings as he waited in the corridor, looking at his name label that was stuck to his chest. The name ‘JHS Entertainment’ was almost more obvious than his own name. The sound of the audience was enough to tell him that his reputation had preceded him.

With a sigh, Taeyong strolled onto the stage and looked as confident as he could muster. He did not smile; he had been told that his gaze was naturally intimidating, and he hoped that it helped now. There was more talking as he surveyed the group of one hundred boys in front of him. He did not introduce himself because he did not feel that anyone would be listening.

The only empty seat was at the very top of the pyramid. Taeyong almost had to laugh at that. It was the only seat he had not wanted to sit in, just in case the audience considered him arrogant or distant, but now there was no choice. The eyes following him as he stepped towards the stairs were impossible to ignore, even as he climbed higher and higher towards the top.

A few boys chose to smile at him, but most stared in awe. They read the company on his label as if it was still a joke. There had been rumours of who had joined the competition, but no one had heard that JHS would even consider sending one of their prized trainees to something as lowly as just a survival show competition.

Taeyong finally smiled when he sat in the first place seat.

**Author's Note:**

> As soon as I work out the most efficient way of taking a survival show episode and working it into text, I'll start writing an update lmao


End file.
